


Hating Steve Rogers

by nanasekei



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (literally just 30 pages of steve rogers feels), Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Fluff and Angst, Human Disaster Steve Rogers, M/M, POV Tony Stark, Pining, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 14:33:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14813219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanasekei/pseuds/nanasekei
Summary: The thing about hating Steve Rogers is that it shouldn’t be easy - but it really, really is.





	Hating Steve Rogers

**Author's Note:**

> -I began writing this before watching Infinity War, so, although technically the _idea_ of the story happens (like, Thanos and etc), this isn't actually compliant with the movie in itself, with the exception of one tiny detail (That One Unread Message in Tony's phone).
> 
> -This is basically free from any Civil War Discourse, but it does contains one or two stances of an Anti-Accords sentiment. It's super minor, though, but there's the warning if anyone needs it. Also, the tone goes from Fluff to Mild Angst to Heavy Angst to Tooth-Rotting Fluff, because that's just how I roll. As always, read at your own risk.

The thing about hating Steve Rogers is that Tony is a pro at it. He could teach a class on the matter, he’s been doing it since he was fifteen. Sure, back then he didn’t think of him as “Steve Rogers” as much as “Captain America”, but he hated him all the same, so Tony thinks it counts.

(Captain America and Steve Rogers are both the same self-righteous asshole, after all. One just happens to wear a tighter costume than the other.)

When they all start living together, that doesn’t change in the slightest. Tony was annoyed by Steve Rogers the first time he met him, and the closer they get, that annoyance grows into a solid dislike, a constant exasperation, and something Tony can only guess is hate, in its purest form.

* * *

 

(“I’ve seen the footage," Captain America says, eyes ridiculously blue staring at Tony with nothing but contempt. “You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

Tony doesn’t look away – doesn’t blink, doesn’t shake, doesn’t wonder _what footage._ “I think I would just cut the wire.”

Captain America glares at him. “Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.”

Tony feels a burst of anger in his chest, clutching his insides, and he doesn’t care what anyone at SHIELD says, no alien magic can create something like this.)

* * *

 

Here’s what Tony learns, working with Steve Rogers:

Steve is quiet. Outside of the field, he doesn’t talk much, and when he does he’s ridiculously concise, expressing in a few words something Tony could have easily turned into a long rant. He may be good at inspiring speeches, but he sucks at small talk, or any talk at all, really. Captain America appearances in talk shows need to be with the entire group, so that an awkward silence doesn’t take over the room after he answers the third consecutive question with a monosyllabic response.

Steve is organized. He keeps his room in the Tower meticulously clean, politely refusing Tony’s constant offers of a cleaning crew, because apparently, the man _likes_ to clean his damn bathroom. At the common areas, too, he’s the annoying prick that makes sure popcorn doesn’t get everywhere during movie nights, picks up the paper balls Clint and Tony throw at each other and washes his dishes after he’s finished eating. Tony rolls his eyes so hard he thinks his eyeballs might fall out.

Steve is dedicated. That should be obvious, really, national icon and all, but it’s still so pathetically earnest that it makes Tony feel sick to his stomach. Steve goes through all their mission reports before delivering them to Hill. He watches the tapes of their battles to find small things that could be changed in their attacks, tiny details they can improve. He takes fucking _notes_ and wants to sit with them later to talk about it, like a teacher handing out grade reports. Tony’s first instinct is to tell him to fuck off, but it happens to be a day where he could use an excuse to not look at the papers Pepper sent him to sign, so he plays along. As it turns out, when Tony is discussing tech changes for the good of the team, Steve actually listens. His blue eyes watch Tony, serious and intense, and sometimes Tony forgets what he’s even saying - because, really, it’s all nitpicky bullshit that you’d have to be a real pain in the ass to care about. Like Steve.

Steve never asks for anything. Tony is used to giving people what they want, so he finds it obnoxious, how the man is apparently so self-important that he can’t be bothered to ask for help with incredibly minor things like using a microwave. How much of a proud asshole do you have to be, Tony wonders, to wake up in a different century and try to learn everything about it on your own? Thor is always asking questions about human society, while Steve just sits nearby and listens in silence, as if he already knows everything. It pisses Tony off.

Steve is stubborn. As in, incredibly, painfully stubborn. Steve doesn’t back down. Ever. He listens to everyone, legitimately considers their points, and very rarely agrees to compromise on one detail or the other – but the bigger picture, in his head, never changes. This extends to stupid things, too, like his constant insistence that the team should have sparring sessions together, even if their schedules don't match. Or his _infuriating_ demand of looking through all of the plans for Tony’s changes on their gear, as if Mr. Just-Found-Out-What-Google-Is-Last-Week can even understand them. Tony scoffs as he hands him the plans, constantly talking about how unnecessary that is, but Steve never listens.

Steve is sad. That… Shouldn’t be obvious, Tony thinks, because it’s not like the guy ever talks about it. He never complains or whines. Still, it’s always there, like a cloud of melancholy that just follows him around, and it comes through on everything he does. Tony wants to feel bad for him - because hey, turns out he _does_ have a heart after all, get with the program  -, but Steve is such an annoying prick that he makes it hard. Plus, it’s none of Tony’s business, anyway.

* * *

 

(“A hero, like you?” Tony feels the venom on his tongue, almost stinging on its way out.

Captain America - _Rogers_ stares right back at him, something Tony can’t quite figure out sparking in his eyes.

“You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle," Tony says, every word filling him with a strange rush, as if he’d been waiting a lifetime to say it.)

* * *

 

It’s right after a battle, that Tony asks for the first time.

He’s not sure what possesses him to do so. Maybe it’s the fact that everything went so smoothly, with no casualties and minimal destruction. Maybe it’s the fact that Thor and Clint are joking around in the comms, that there was no Code Green and Bruce is laughing at them, that even Natasha seems relaxed. Maybe it’s just that it’s a sunny and beautiful day, and the light hits Steve’s eyes and hair in a way that – Tony has to admit - makes him look otherworldly beautiful.

Whatever the reason, Tony lifts the faceplate of the armor and grins at him. “Happy, Cap?”

Steve’s reply is immediate: “Everything went great. We really nailed that first attack.” His eyes find Tony’s, bluer than the freaking sky, and he gives him a small smile. “The suit held up perfectly against the poison.” He lays a hand on the shoulder of the armor, and there’s a strong heat in Tony’s skin just at the weight, as if he could somehow feel Steve’s touch even under a barrier of gold and titanium. “Nice work, Tony.”

Tony feels strangely dizzy, almost drunk, as if he’s turned on the repulsors and started floating without realizing it. He almost doesn’t notice the lack of an answer.

* * *

 

(Later that day, when he can’t stop hearing Steve’s voice in his head and feeling his not-actually-a-touch on his shoulder, Tony wonders if sadness can be innate. Some people are naturally happy, so it stands to reason the opposite could also be true. He wonders if that’s just the way Steve’s smile is, beautiful lips curved in a line of kindness and shyness and gloominess, all at once. Maybe it was carved on his skin at birth, melancholy spread all over his body like freckles. Maybe it’s just a terrible cosmic pun, how blue his eyes are. Tony thinks a lot, but doesn’t come up with a solid conclusion.)

* * *

 

Here’s what Tony learns, living with Steve Rogers:

Steve is creative. He likes art and spends a lot of his free time painting and drawing. Meanwhile, Tony doesn’t know shit about art, and any pieces he has in the Tower were picked by Pepper when they reformed the place to build the new floors. Still, one day, he catches Steve eyeing one of them, carefully, with such an intense expression Tony loses track of his own thoughts for a moment. The next week, before Thor leaves to Asgard, Steve gifts him a painting with a color palette that Tony thinks is kind of similar to the one he was looking at, but in a completely different arrangement that catches Tony’s eye. It’s… Not bad, really.

Steve is impatient. He never complains, sure, but Tony can see it clearly at the meetings at SHIELD, how he shifts in the same place constantly when they’re told to wait for a couple of extra minutes. The first time he comes to Tony’s workshop, to talk about a modification in Clint’s arrows, Tony has Jarvis working on some calculations, so it takes the A.I. a moment longer to load the code to open the door. The way Steve frowns during the extra minute he’s kept waiting is the funniest part of Tony’s day, and he makes sure to program a reduction of 30% on the speed of Jarvis’ responses whenever Steve comes down.

Steve is a Tolkien fan. At first, Tony doesn’t notice, because he reads a lot of stuff, from history books to famous biographies to recent comics. Then he catches Steve curled up in the couch with _The Fellowship of The Ring_ for what he’s pretty sure is the third time, which weirds him out. He asks if his personal library needs some new additions, and Steve glances at him surprised for a moment before shaking his head politely.

“Just wanted to have it all fresh in my head for when we see the movie tonight,” he says, with a tiny smile (Steve’s smiles are always tiny).

Tony doesn’t even mean to be an asshole when he immediately replies: “Isn’t that a bit pointless? Doesn’t the serum already makes sure you don’t forget a single word?”

Steve’s already-too-tiny smile falters. “Doesn’t mean I can’t still enjoy it.”

(Next week, when it’s Tony turn to pick the movie, he stares very firmly at anywhere-but-Steve when he asks for the extended edition of _The Fellowship._ Clint groans, but Natasha shushes him, and Bruce enjoys the idea, so it’s not a problem. Tony totally pays attention to the extra scenes and content, and not on the way Steve’s eyes brighten with something close to excitement when he watches, or on how his hands close with anticipation at a scene he knows is coming, or how he mouths some of the lines along with the actors, or – hey, it’s a great movie, ok? Oscar-nominated and everything.)

Steve is brave. Not just jumping-out-of-planes-without-a-parachute brave, or even fighting-supervillains-for-a-living brave. This is routine for him – well, for all of them now -, so it’s stuff he does without thinking, just a regular part of the superhero gig. No, Steve’s bravery comes through in other ways. It comes through when they have an op in the Arctic, and Tony watches the way his jaw clenches as the quinjet comes closer and the temperature drops, but Steve doesn’t say a word. It comes through in a talking show, when the host makes a dirty joke and leers at Natasha so blatantly even Tony is slightly uncomfortable, and Steve – who has, so far, uttered a total of five words during the entire interview - interrupts him.

“You know, one thing I’ve learned about this century is that, unfortunately, some things haven’t changed _enough,"_  he says, and Tony is about to step in to lighten the mood, but Steve continues, bringing up the name Peggy Carter aloud for the first time since he got out of the ice, in front of a live audience and tons of cameras. His voice gets soft for maybe a second, but his hands curl into fists in his lap and he stares at the interviewer the entire time.

It comes through when Tony is deliberately picking on him, trying to get him to post a video on Instagram. Tony can tell that the idea of putting himself out there without the helmet on for millions of people to see makes Steve nervous, so, because he’s an asshole, he smirks at him challengingly. “It’s good for PR, Cap. Do you want me to show you how to do it?”

Steve presses his way-too-pink lips together in a fine line and shifts a little on the same place, but he doesn’t look away. A few minutes later, he shows up in the living room and hands Tony the phone. Tony touches the screen to watch a very short video of Steve with slightly flushed cheeks, rigid posture, awkward as always in front of a camera, just saying hello and thanking people for their support.

“According to Clint, I’ve broken some kind of record,” Steve says, voice slightly brattish. He gives him a borderline smug smile, and Tony opens his mouth to reply with something, but forgets how to English for a moment. Steve nods at him before picking his phone again and heading out.

(Tony absolutely does not save the video, and anything Jarvis might say on the matter is just a flat out lie.)

Steve is sweet. That, more than anything, drives Tony up the wall. He’s always polite, sure, but that’s easy to dismiss, practice from the times where he had to kiss babies and shake people’s hands on a regular basis. What Tony can’t really ignore is the way his voice softens when talking to Bruce after a Code Green; or how he makes a point of looking Natasha in the eye when talking to her, as if he wants her to feel trust exhaling from his gaze or something; or how he sits with Thor to show him what he’s recently learned about modern human society, because he wants the alien god to know as much as he does. It makes Tony rolls his eyes, because, honestly, they’re already following his orders, no need to butter anyone up, ok, Cap? But then Steve makes a point of leaving a few pancakes for him when he comes down to the kitchen way after breakfast, or says goodbye to Tony before leaving to spend the day volunteering at a veterans rehabilitation center, or thanks Jarvis every damn time the A.I. does basic things like opening doors or turning the TV on, and Tony… Well, Tony still rolls his eyes, because of course he does, but there’s a strange tightness in his chest during it, and he very adamantly doesn’t ask himself why.

* * *

 

The thing about hating Steve Rogers is that it shouldn’t be easy - but it really, really is. After a while, it turns into a kind of a project, for Tony. Every new detail he gathers about Steve turns into another bullet point on his mental file on him, which, against Tony’s better judgement, seems to be constantly growing.

Tony doesn’t get it. Steve isn’t even a complicated person, not when you put him against two super spies or a guy who turns into a green monster. He is all simple shapes, solid lines, equations that should take Tony no longer than half a second to get bored with, but he never does. Tony isn’t sure of when it stops being about Captain America and more about Steve himself, but the fact is that it is, now, and he feels like he can’t go back.

(Captain America and Steve Rogers are not the same self-righteous asshole, after all. They’re two separate self-righteous assholes, who mix together sometimes in ways Tony still can’t fully understand. One just happens to exist because of the other.)

So he watches, cataloging every new piece of information in his brain. Tony hates Steve Rogers and thinks very carefully about every single reason he has to hate him, how they all work, how they come together to create the man that pisses him off so much. In a way, it’s as if he needs to gather data for some analysis, some experiment Tony doesn’t even know what would be for.

* * *

 

(They never really talk about the fight in the helicarrier. Officially, Tony guesses, it was all the scepter’s fault, but he knows better – he can’t speak for Steve, but he knows what he said and how it felt to say it. He knows he hates Steve Rogers, has hated him for most of his life, and even if it feels slightly _different_ now, Tony clings to that feeling, because a part of his mind feels like he needs it more every day. Because Steve works and lives with him, and he is stubborn and sweet and brave and so goddamn _sad_ all the time, and Tony needs to deal with this weird urge to watch him constantly; to follow him around the Tower like a child; to think about that blinding, stunning smile staring at him right after he fell from space. Hating Steve Rogers, as it turns out, is Tony’s way to cope with his existence. So that’s what he does.)

* * *

 

Here’s how it goes, dealing with Steve Rogers:

Steve wakes up early. Tony tells Jarvis to let him know when Steve goes to the kitchen, so he can come down and steal some coffee. Steve’s coffee is great, and Tony is often in a state where he desperately needs caffeine to finish the most recent project that forced him to ignore the annoying human need for sleep for the past three days, so it works out. Steve never complains, just pours him a mug. Sometimes, he pushes the pancake plate towards Tony in the most unsubtle order ever, and Tony might eat one or two, when he feels like it – Steve’s pancakes are also great, even if Tony needs to eat them staring fixedly at the plate, to ignore the tiny smile on Steve’s face as he watches him.

Steve is smart. When they’re developing new gear, Tony throws a lot of scientific lingo at him, just to freak him out. Aside from frowning a few times, though, Steve is surprisingly good at skipping through the useless part of Tony’s blabber and focusing on the important points of what he says. Tony really wants to make him confused (heart or not, he’s still an asshole, he can’t deny it), but the more they talk, the harder it becomes. Steve cuts through the bullshit and goes straight to the point, and, usually, that would be stupid, but the guy has a knack for figuring out _what_ is the point very quickly. Not that Tony cares. He’s a genius, used to speaking to downright brilliant minds, so there’s no reason to be awed because Captain America turned out to be a little sharper than he initially thought he would. But it’s kind of fun, bouncing ideas off Steve. It’s not the same as Bruce, who focuses on a lot of complex questions for scientific curiosity. Steve is a lot more practical, blunt, and the fact that he can still keep up with Tony’s pace is… Impressive.

Steve is funny. Not funny to make people cry from laughter like Thor or Tony, or to make sarcastic comments like Clint or Natasha. He’s funny in almost a sneaky way, Tony finds, mostly through some seriously deadpan, self-depreciating lines that make Tony have to hold back his chuckle. Steve doesn’t seem to plan to be funny, either – he just drops something in the middle of the conversation, almost by accident, and his eyes watch smugly when Tony laughs. Tony gets the sense that it’s not something a lot of people get to see, and being among the few who do is almost worth this entire Avenger Initiative altogether.

Steve is shy. That, Tony was more than ready for, and on the first few weeks he happily makes Steve flush with some outrageous comments about 21st-century sex politics. It’s not like he’s a prude – he doesn’t freak out at a simple swear or one or two dirty jokes, but, post-serum and all, he still stammers and doesn’t seem to know what to do when people flirt blatantly with him at galas. And Tony… Well, Tony is an asshole, but he’s not that bad, so he happens to step into it sometimes, to politely and cheerfully steer Steve away to somewhere he can be more comfortable. That is always somewhere a little less public, with more familiar faces, and Tony pretends there’s not a weird warmth in his chest when Steve mutters a soft _Thank you_ under his breath, avoiding his face.

Steve doesn’t touch people. At first, Tony thinks it’s just one the side effects of being shy, but it goes beyond the way his posture stiffens when a daring woman runs her fingers over his biceps. During movie nights, Steve avoids the couch, sitting on a chair. On the rare occasions someone bumps into him, Tony can see his whole body tensing up. When they run into fans crazy about the idea of meeting Captain America, Steve is quick to take a step back and offer his hand for a handshake, from a safe distance. He doesn’t hug Sam when he comes over for their morning run, or Thor when he leaves to go back to his realm. At best, very rarely, he pats Sam’s shoulder, so quickly the other man barely has a chance to respond before Steve is already at arm's-length.

(With Tony, it’s always over the armor. Always fast, always distant, always heavy enough to make Tony feel like his suit could melt under the weight of Steve’s palm. Steve always looks away immediately afterward, hand snapping back so quickly it’s as if he was doing something he shouldn’t.)

* * *

 

The second time Tony asks, they’re at his workshop. Tony's just finished some new adjustments on Steve’s motorcycle – nothing major, just some upgrades in the engine and some minor design changes, giving it a vintage touch without losing the modern look. Steve’s mouth hangs open and he takes a step forward, hand reaching to touch the _Howling Commandos_ written on the side of the gas tank, a final detail Tony hadn’t been completely sure of when he added. His eyes are wide and bright, the blue light of the monitors reflecting his gaze and creating a color that simply _shouldn’t_ be able to exist.

Tony thinks: _I’d start a war to get you to look at me like this._ Then he crosses his arms, horrified at his own thoughts. He opens his mouth to talk - because, hey, that’s just how he handles his problems -, and it just comes out.

“Happy, Cap?”

Steve takes a sharp breath, blinking quickly.

“It’s… It’s amazing, Tony. Thank you,” he says, voice soft, and something inside Tony breaks when he notices how hard he’s trying to avoid getting choked up. Steve breathes deeply, blue eyes still fixated on the writing, and for a moment there’s something in his face that can only be described as longing. “Thank you so much.”

He means it, Tony knows. Still, he fiddles with his hands, watching as Steve’s fingers trace the motorcycle carefully, touching as he’d never do with an actual person, a fragile smile forming on his lips. He wonders what he’s thinking – if he’s thinking of the war, of loud songs and chatter around a fire, of friendship and comradery, of a place where he didn’t flinch at touches and his happiness wasn’t tinged with pain.

Tony thinks: _Maybe, next time, I’ll build you a time machine._ Steve’s fingers caress the letters and his heart aches. _Maybe that will work._

* * *

 

(Maybe, Tony thinks, you just can’t be that stubborn and kind and brave and exist in the world without also being sad. Maybe being sad is just the price Steve pays for being real.)

* * *

 

The thing about Tony is that he’s a futurist. He thinks further than anybody else can follow, and his dreams and nightmares are bigger than anyone could ever imagine.

When Tony’s biggest nightmare turns out to be watching Steve Rogers die, Tony thinks… Well, he doesn’t think much, which, at the end, is the entire problem, isn’t it? The ground starts floating beneath them, red murderous eyes stare at his team, and Tony – Tony hears Steve words in his head, _all_ of his words, to _pretending to be a hero_ to _you could’ve saved us, why didn’t you do more_ – but no, no, those weren’t Steve’s words, not the Steve right next to him, the stubborn, sad, beautiful man willing to die by his side. Tony clenches his fists and focuses on Steve’s actual words, from _we won_ to _together_ , and he clings to that last one, breathes on it. He raises his head to look at the living embodiment of his failures and says it, right to Ultron’s face. _Together._

The word feels big and heavy on his lips, warm enough to light a fire in his chest, to find the arc reactor and melt it.

* * *

 

When they say goodbye, it’s not like the helicarrier. They pace around the compound, wearing off Thor’s presence until he finally has to go and leave them alone. Tony babbles, of course; but Steve is smart, Steve knows how to cut through his bullshit.

“I will miss you, Tony,” he says, and Tony chest tightens, and a part of him wants to say: _I saw you. I saw everyone – Bruce covered in blood, Thor’s face pale and numb, Clint on the top of the pile, Natasha’s eyes still open and blank – but especially you._

“Well, it's time for me to tap out.”

Steve’s eyes never leave his face, and Tony thinks: _I saw everyone else dead, but I had to watch you die._

He doesn’t say that, of course. Instead, he babbles some more.

Steve’s reply is strangely thoughtful. “I don't know. Family, stability… The guy who wanted all that went in the ice seventy-five years ago.” He gives him that sad smile (all of Steve’s smiles are sad). “I think someone else came out.”

Tony thinks: _I almost destroyed the world because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you._

He turns around. He has to, because he knows what’s he’s doing, knows what he has to do, and he has an irrational fear that maybe looking at Steve now will make him blurt out something terrifyingly true.

He takes one last look before going into the car, though: “You all right?”

Steve takes a second to respond. “I’m home.”

Tony thinks: _I wish one day you’d actually answer the question._

* * *

 

Here’s how it goes, not living with Steve Rogers:

Steve texts him a lot. It never starts with anything personal, just a few mission reports and general updates on the team. Tony thinks of telling him he’s not Fury, for fuck’s sake, he doesn’t need to get data on whatever Hydra base they just destroyed, but Steve’s texting speed has improved a lot, and he’s even learned to slip in a few emojis now and then, so Tony allows it. He answers them all, and Steve sends him a video of Sam and Clint trying to teach Vision how to dance, and Tony laughs before going to bed. In the morning, there’s always a new text.

Steve comes by the Tower, sometimes. Ostensibly, it’s always for business – to pick up some new equipment or hand over something that broke. Someone else could do that, Tony knows, but Steve would never ask. Steve never asks for anything.

Steve… Hangs out at the Tower, rarely. Usually right after they finish talking about whatever gear needs to be updated or fixed, and Steve stands up, shifting awkwardly in the same place, his posture stiffening before he says: “I should probably go, then”.

Tony hears himself saying: “We could eat something first. You know, if you want to.”.

Steve’s eyes widen at him for a moment, and he nods, a slight flush on his ears: “I guess we could.”

Steve eats _a lot._ Tony already knew that, of course, and he thinks four pizzas for just the two of them will be enough for a supersoldier’s stomach, but he definitely underestimated the lengths Steve will go to not let food go to waste. He eats voraciously, letting Tony in on the details of Wanda and Vision’s surprising romance, and as he talks a bit of sauce gets on his cheek. It’s gross, Tony thinks, Captain America has no manners, but he doesn’t say anything, just watches as Steve does his best to keep talking and eating without choking. Tony’s grinning without realizing it, and his hand itches to move forward and do something incredibly stupid, like wiping Steve’s cheek, so he crosses his arms and changes the subject.

“So, the search, how’s it going? Any luck?”

Steve stops for a moment, looking at him with an unreadable expression. “It’s… It’s fine.”

“You know I could still…”

“I know. I know, Tony,” he says, and there’s something Tony doesn’t get in his eyes – something pained and scared and weirdly fond at the same time. “But you have other things to worry about. We will find him.”

Tony rolls his eyes, but drops it.

Steve doesn’t approve of his retirement. Tony doesn’t have to guess that, because it’s in everything Steve says, from his mission reports to not-so-subtle invitations for sparring sessions at the compound. Tony refuses it all, but Steve is stubborn, so he never lets go. He stares at Tony before leaving, blue eyes heavy with a ton of things he never says, and Tony doesn’t think about his sad smiles or his stiff posture or the sauce on his cheek. Instead, he thinks of the shield broken in pieces, of _You could have saved us_. He thinks of Steve grabbing his hand right before dying (Steve doesn’t touch people, and Tony would rather never find out if death would change that). He thinks of _Why didn’t you do more,_ of Steve’s cold skin under his fingertips. Being retired is easy then, with Steve in front of him, impatient and stubborn and incredibly, _overwhelmingly_ alive.

“Cap? Be sure to call if you need anything else,” Tony says, when he turns to walk to the door.

Steve stops for a moment, lips pressed into a thin line, like he wants to say something. He never does, though, and Tony is grateful for it, for how Steve never asks for anything, because Tony doesn’t know if he’d be able to deny him anything he asked. “I will.”

Tony watches his back as he walks away. That’s why it’s easy, hating Steve Rogers, because he makes it so simple, so much safer than other potentially dangerous things might be.

* * *

 

The thing about loving people is that… Well, Tony’s bad at it. He has years of an on-and-off relationship with a truly patient woman to prove it. Loving people is messy and scary. To Tony specifically, loving people is too much. It's too heavy.

It’s like palladium and shrapnel at once. It grows from his chest slowly until it takes over his entire body, and it lurks around his heart constantly, waiting to slip inside and take him down for good.

* * *

 

By the time Tony can ask the question again, he’s completely drunk.

It’s a party in the compound for Wanda’s birthday, and Tony made up a good excuse to not come, but Steve texted him with an actual smiley emoji, and before Tony knew, he was picking out a nice gift and getting ready. He knows he shouldn’t go, knows it’s not a good idea, but still, he shows up, almost half an hour late, and he reminds himself the way Steve rushes in front of everyone to greet him (with a handshake that doesn’t last more than three seconds) doesn’t mean anything.

It’s not like it’s a bad party, Tony considers. Wanda seems relaxed, which is nice – Tony hasn’t seen her since Pietro’s burial, and, the last time he’d seen someone looking that lost, he had been staring at a mirror. Now, she and Vision are dancing happily, and Clint tries some embarrassing moves next to them, causing Laura and Natasha to exchange amused looks. Rhodey and Sam are making cocktails, wrapped up in some argument about whether the War Machine suit or Sam’s wings would win in a fight.

They all seem happy, Tony notices.

And then there’s Steve.

He participates, sure. He talks a lot with Natasha, watches some of Sam and Rhodey’s discussion, even takes a sip of a cocktail or two. But Steve’s quiet, Tony knows – he’s not the type to be the joy of a party, even when not actively trying to escape. Tony watches him, watches everyone else, and there’s a knot in his throat that he knows can only be swallowed down with a glass of whiskey – or three. Or four. Or five.

He loses count somewhere, vaguely aware of Rhodey laughing and laying him on the couch sometime after he took it upon himself to solve his argument with Sam by scribbling a bunch of equations on the table. He dozes off, blinking his eyes open in what it feels like a moment afterward, when he feels a hand on the back of his neck.

“Sorry!” Steve blurts out, hand snapping back so quickly Tony barely has the time to register the touch, and it takes all of his self-control to not beg for him to come back. “Just, just raise your head a little, will you?”

Tony obeys, and Steve places a pillow under the back of his neck, hand patting it a few times – _fluffing_ it for him, Tony realizes. He groans.

“Sorry," Steve mutters. “Didn’t mean to wake you up.” He finishes fluffing the pillow and turns around to pick up a blanket. He lays it over Tony, and Tony – Tony watches Steve leaning over him, tugging the blanket under the cushions, nervous and kind hands so painfully careful to not touch him again.

Tony thinks: _If I built a time machine, I wouldn’t tell you. I’d probably break it, because I'd never be able to let you go._

When Steve finishes, he lays his hand on the pillow again, tapping it a few more times, and his eyes glance over Tony’s face for a second, a moment that doesn’t last even remotely close to enough.

“Cap,” Tony hears himself saying, his voice low and hoarse. He thinks he could cry right now, with Steve’s fingers so unbearably close to his face, the warmth of his body irradiating so strongly it seems to burn through the blanket. “Are you happy?”

Steve frowns, as if he doesn’t understand the question.

Tony counts the endless shades of blue in his eyes, thinks of his hand still so close, wonders how it’s possible to feel drunker on someone’s presence than after five shots of whiskey.

Steve gives him a sad smile – all of Steve’s smiles are sad, and Tony wants to kiss every single one of them off his mouth, cupping his face, pressing against those full pink lips over and over and over until he could _swallow_ Steve’s pain down his throat, where it couldn’t hurt him anymore.

“Go to sleep, Tony.” Steve says, standing up and walking away.

* * *

 

The thing about hating Steve Rogers is that, by now, Tony can easily tell when other people do it, too. So when Ross stands right in front of him, showing footage of all their (and Tony’s, especially Tony’s) destruction, even as he talks about the debt the world owes the Avengers, Tony can see how annoyed he grows every time Steve opens his mouth. He shifts on his seat, uncomfortable, when Steve turns his head to look at him.

Later, when they’re all gathered, Steve opens his mouth to talk and Tony can feel his own anger bubbling up inside him, along with a nervous feeling.

“He’s already made up his mind,” Steve says, like it’s so obvious, like everyone else in the room can see it, like he never expected anything different. It sparks an ire in Tony’s chest that he hasn’t felt in a while, and he lays it down for everyone to see, the story of that poor boy, another drop of blood on Tony’s hands, right when he was trying to get them clean.

Steve listens. Then he answers, and Rhodey speaks, then Sam, and Tony is enough of a genius to see this isn’t going anywhere, which makes him _furious,_ because how can they not see, there’s no option, and Steve can’t just be this stubborn – can’t just _be Steve_ about this, not now.

Tony opens his mouth to say something, but Steve stands up suddenly, holding his phone.

“I have to go,” he says before running out of the room, and the words sink onto Tony’s chest heavily, ominous in a way he desperately wishes they weren’t.

* * *

 

Tony tries to categorize everything, later, on the privacy of his workshop. His head is buzzing, there’s an empty bottle of wine on the table, and the last thing he wants to think of is Steve Rogers, so, of course, it’s the only thing he can think of.

It’s a bunch of new data to handle, Tony thinks, huffing out a bitter, drunk laugh no one else can hear. Steve’s shield is heavy. Steve packs one hell of a punch. Steve is good at hiding things, especially from people he does not trust. Steve, Steve…

Tony’s chest hurts, and he lays his head on the table too strongly.

* * *

 

When the phone arrives, Tony wants to throw it away. He really, really does. He picks it up and thinks of incinerating it, of breaking it apart, of smashing it with a hammer.

He puts it in his pocket, instead.

It’s not the wisest decision, really. But he can’t leave it in his drawer, can’t lock it away in a safe. He keeps thinking it’s going to be found, Ross will put his hands on it, and then – what? He shouldn’t even care, he thinks, should _want_ Steve Rogers rotting in a prison cell, but the mere thought is enough to make him want to throw up.

So, he carries the phone.

It feels heavy, most of the time. It’s so old, he doesn’t even know how Steve got it – as far as Tony knows, they don’t even make these things anymore, and if anyone does, they should be ashamed of themselves. But it makes sense, Tony guesses. Steve knows a burn phone is harder to track than something more advanced, because Steve is smart.

Tony shakes his head at the thought, because that’s old data, now. It’s _all_ old data, he admits, all these small, isolated pieces of Steve Rogers he’s been picking up over the years, desperate for any scraps of his existence to – to – Tony doesn’t even know. To _have,_ in a way, he guesses, to hold it close to his chest, close enough to smother the thoughts of sad smiles and time machines. It didn’t work, obviously. Tony wonders if a vibranium plate will end up being more effective.

* * *

 

During the two years they spend apart, you’d think Tony would have been able to polish his hate to perfection. Hell, he thought that himself.

But, as it turns out, hating Steve Rogers isn’t as easy when Steve isn’t there to be hated. It’s possible, sure, and Tony basks on it as much as he can, especially during the first few months – but, eventually, it loses its steam. It feels hollow.

Tony tries to channel that anger, that urge to blow Barnes’ head open. He focuses on the loud noise of the shield getting hammered on his chest. He focuses on Steve being a liar and a hypocrite and turning his back on him. He focuses on _You don’t deserve that shield_ and on the way Steve barely stopped, not even bothering to look back, before letting go of it, as if it never meant anything to him. He tries not to _relate_ to a fucking abandoned piece of vibranium, before knocking back another glass, ignoring Rhodey’s worried gaze.

Tony does not focus on the phone. He hates it, for sure, he wants to throw it away, and sometimes at night he wakes up and clings to it desperately, certain he had lost it. But he doesn’t think about it, doesn’t use it, doesn’t even open it for months. He just carries it around, busy with this new reality of not thinking about Steve Rogers. He tells himself it’s because it’s not worth it, after all, what’s the point of hating someone you’re never going to see again? But deep down, Tony is still a genius, still too smart to believe in his own lies. He tells himself to find that anger, to let it linger, to hold onto it, but it slips through his fingers, it walks away – it turns its back on him and leaves him behind, laying on the floor of a Siberian bunker, crushing under the weight of how much he didn’t matter at all.

Tony is not retired anymore. He works a lot with the U.N., does his best to push for modifications on the Accords’ terms, and when Ross doesn’t give in, he does his best to work with what he has. He keeps Parker away from all this shit, pretends he doesn’t see it when Vision disappears for weeks at time, helps Rhodey with his recovery. He goes back to the compound, thinks of how empty it looks now. He drinks himself into a stupor from time to time, and, as he clutches the phone in his pocket before going to bed, even hating Steve Rogers hurts too much, now.

* * *

 

Here’s how it goes, missing Steve Rogers:

Tony doesn’t talk about it. Rhodey, bless him, tries to get him to, more than once, but it never works. Tony doesn’t want to talk about Steve, because he doesn’t even want to think about him, and if one thing is apparently outside of his control, at least he can have the other.

Tony breaks the Accords. It’s not a new thing, really, since he did it three times less than 48 hours after signing them. He breaks them now again, by keeping the phone close to his chest and away from everyone else, by hiding Peter, by constantly avoiding Ross’ calls. He sees Steve’s point, in a way, and that, more than anything, stings so deeply he feels like he can’t breathe. He still sees Charles Spencer’s blood on his hands, and he wonders what the fuck _is_ the way to get them clean after all, what does he have to do, how does _Steve_ does it, how-

Tony reads the letter. He reads it over and over again, until he knows it all by heart. He’s haunted by it, in a way, listening to _I know I hurt you_ and _My faith’s in people_ and _Hopefully one day you can understand_ echoing in his head in a loop. He reads it, runs his fingers over the words, and it occurs to him, out of nowhere, that Steve’s handwriting sucks. It’s a reflex, Tony guesses, and how very telling that, six months later, he’s still grasping at straws for the crumbs of Steve Rogers, pathetically searching for particles of his existence, little things he left behind along with Tony himself.

After eleven months, Tony watches old videos, because it’s pointless to deny himself this small torture, in light of everything. He watches as Captain America leads the Howling Commandos into battle, as he smiles fondly at a picture of Peggy Carter in his watch, as he and his friend Bucky Barnes joke together around a fire. He watches Barnes’ tired but young face, wonders how can that be the same person he encountered in Siberia – and, immediately, he knows: They aren’t. The thought sends a nervous feeling down his stomach, but Tony doesn’t know what to do with that.

(When a year rolls by, Tony gets a text.

When he sees it, his hands shake so hard he drops the phone. Then he picks it up again, taking several sharp breaths, trying to get a hold of himself.

It’s a text. It’s a text, not a call.

If Steve were in danger, he’d call.

Tony breathes again, slowly this time. His heart is rushing, begging for the return of the palladium and the shrapnel. Tony’s fingers itch to open it, to drink in every word, to cling to that one new, unexpected piece of Steve he didn’t think he’d get.

He breathes, though. He thinks of the shield hitting the floor. He thinks of Steve walking away from him, not turning back once.

Tony is still a genius. He knows what he needs to do.

He doesn’t open it.)

Tony gets back together with Pepper. It’s stupid, he knows, and deep down he thinks she probably knows, too. The engagement is the joy of the media, and even more so a month later, when they decide to call it off. It’s maybe the most sensible thing Tony’s ever done, so it’s fitting that the idea comes from Pepper first. Still, he’s grateful she, at least, isn’t as bad at loving people as he.

Tony builds himself a new armor. He doesn’t have to attach the new reactor to his chest, but he does it anyway. It’s smaller, triangular. Tony likes to sleep with it, enjoys the small blue light coloring the room, making it easier to avoid the other shades of blue he keeps seeing in his dreams.

Tony searches Eskrine’s notes. He doesn’t know why, exactly. Unlike old Captain America films, the notes are few and sparse, and most of them are not even about Steve. They’re about the serum, a bunch of random thoughts and scribbles. On the last pages, there’s the name Steve Rogers, accompanied by his weight, height and the impressive list of all of his health issues. Eskrine knew Steve for only a couple of days before he decided to bet his life’s work on him.

Tony wonders how he knew. Yeah, yeah, he knows the story – dummy grenade, catching the flag, _I don’t like bullies._ But still, he wonders how he knew so fast – how he was able to take one look at Steve Rogers and understand him so fully, so immediately, when Tony spent years failing miserably at the task.

Tony looks back on older pages, flipping through the images in front of him, making Friday focus on unreadable words and schemes. One specific line catches his eye: _Good becomes great, bad becomes worse_. Tony’s a genius, but even if he weren’t he’d be able to understand Eskrine was referring to the serum’s enhancing abilities. And reading it like that feels… Strange. Mostly because it’s familiar, in a way – Tony has never been a fan of notebooks, but he knows very well what’s like to have your thoughts on a project assembled in such a mess no one else would be able to make sense of it. Eskrine probably didn’t know Steve when he wrote that down. It was probably a conclusion he came up with after the Johan Schmidt disaster, and he wrote it to keep it in his mind, to help him search for the right man next time.

Then, out of nowhere, it occurs to Tony: Steve was never supposed to be alone. He was the test-run, the proof for the State Department that they had the project that was going to win the war. If anything else had gone differently that day, if the lab had better security, if someone had reacted faster, there would have been an army of supersoldiers way before Hydra even started thinking about the idea. Seeing how well the first subject reacted, the Allies would definitely have sped up the process. At a minimum, they would have gotten themselves a full unit before going to battle.

Tony’s a scientist, not a historian, so he can’t even grasp what the full consequences of that could have been, for the world. What he can grasp, however, is that single, insistent thought: Steve was supposed to be the first, not the only one. Had a single thing happened slightly differently, he would never have become the Star-Spangled Man. The world would know an all-powerful army, and Steve would just be what he had signed up to be in the first place – just one more soldier fighting for what was right.

He wasn’t even meant to be a Captain.

Tony isn’t sure of why this thought wraps itself in his mind, but it does. He has heard this story so many times - usually through Howard, but through movies, comic books, everything else – as one of the greatest scientific victories in history, as the triumphant origin of the world’s first superhero. Of course, many lamented the lost samples – what they could have meant for the war, for the country, for the world. Tony had never thought about what they could have meant for Steve.

 _I never really fit in anywhere, even in the army,_ he hears in his head, so clear it’s as if Steve’s whispering right next to him. _But you were supposed to,_ Tony thinks, as if Steve can hear him too. _You were never meant to be alone._

It’s a strange thought, an almost random epiphany that doesn’t help to get to whatever conclusion he’s always trying to look for with Steve Rogers, but Tony keeps it anyway.

* * *

 

The thing about loving people is that it’s scary. It’s big and overwhelming and terrifying. It’s like flying to space, seeing only darkness around you, and tricking yourself into believing you can go higher and higher, until the systems fail and you fall.

Tony’s bad at it. He loves too much and too loudly, and he desperately wishes he didn’t. He carries a flip phone in his pocket, watches old movies and ignores a text because he knows it doesn’t say what he wants to hear.

When the world starts to fall apart, Tony thinks of Steve’s sad smile and his stiff posture, and how his hand once hovered over Tony’s head in a couch and he didn’t reach forward to touch him, because he never touches anyone.

Thanos’ warship descends from the sky, and Tony presses the phone against his chest, unconsciously.

* * *

 

The Wakandan royal palace is the most incredible thing Tony has ever seen. In different circumstances, he’d probably get himself in trouble trying to pick the place apart, but there’s no time for any of that now, and there will be no time for anything else later, if they fail.

When the fugitives arrive, Natasha pulls him into a hug. It’s warm and comforting and strange, from her, but Tony doesn’t mind. Sam gives a pat on his shoulder and moves forward to hug Rhodey.

Steve watches at the door. When Tony looks at him, he’s wide-eyed, staring at him so intensely Tony almost wants to ask him to stop, but his voice disappears. T’Challa says something, but Steve doesn’t seem to hear it.

He takes a step forward, his shoulders tense, fists clenched, and – stops.

Tony nods at him, Steve nods back, and that’s it.

* * *

 

Here’s how it goes, saving the universe with Steve Rogers:

Steve doesn’t talk to him. He focuses entirely on the attack plan. It’s simple enough to make them all nervous. It basically all comes down to a group of newcomers none of them have ever met before, 90% of which are aliens, who assure them Thanos is powerless without the gauntlet. Scott Lang is supposed to shrink and slip inside it without Thanos noticing, taking it off his arm. Everyone else is bait.

Steve has a new shield. It’s Wakandan tech, so, of course, it’s impressive, and it catches Tony’s eye. He watches as Steve tests it a few times, striking the air around them. Tony thinks he sees a muscle in his jaw twitch, but he can’t be sure.

Steve takes a sharp breath as Proxima’s minions start crawling over Wakanda’s barrier. Steve’s no scientist, but it doesn’t take one to know even Wakandan tech is not invincible against those numbers. Tony feels his own stomach bubble with anxiety and clenches his teeth. He remembers Ultron’s eyes, the pile of bodies, the emptiness of space all around him. There’s a shiver of fear down his spine, but he keeps it under control and stares forward as Thanos walks in the direction of the barrier, slowly, almost as if he’s a visitor they’re welcoming.

Steve turns his head when Tony turns on his repulsors.

“I’m not waiting for them to make themselves at home,” Tony says, and Steve – Steve _smiles,_ for a moment, and Tony thinks his eyes find his, one second before the impulse kicks in and he flies over the battlefield. Behind them, Tony can hear T’Challa giving the attack orders, the sound of the army running.

Everything happens too fast.

Steve focuses the assault on Thanos. He rushes forward in his line of sight. Natasha is close by, and she and T’Challa keep the aliens under control. Tony hears Rhodey shouting that the palace needs back up, and Sam announces he’s coming right before Tony hears an explosion through the comms. Wanda is taking down entire ships by herself, Thor next to her making thunder wipe the enemies from the ground. Barnes is behind, him and the raccoon using their rifles from a distance; and some guy who calls himself Starlord shoots down an alien who jumped at Tony’s back. He has no time to thank him, however, because Steve has reached Thanos, and Clint is right by his side with Scott shrunken, holding onto his shoulder. Nebula and Gamora talk to Thanos, and Proxima approaches them, aiming her spear at Nebula, who dodges her attack but has to focus on fighting her back. Gamora seems worried for a moment, but she holds her sword on her hands, leaping for an attack. Thanos grabs her by the hand, and Steve rushes forward to hold his punch with the shield. Gamora manages to stick her sword in Thanos’ chest just as his fist crushes Steve’s shield and throws him on the ground  - and Tony is pretty sure he heard someone screaming _now_ through the comms, but he doesn’t think, just turns towards the ground as Nebula turns her attention back to Thanos and Proxima sticks her spear _through_ Steve’s chest, and there’s blood everywhere as Tony comes closer and nearly crashes onto the woman, and on the back of his head he thinks he can hear a shattering noise, or an explosion, or an universe ending, he’s not sure, and he’s grabbing onto Steve’s shoulders as he hears Thanos’ scream, and there’s blood in Tony’s gauntlets and it feels like it’s melting through it, Steve’s blood touching his hands, and there’s someone talking to him but Tony can’t hear it, he only hears _why didn’t you do more_ and the blood, the blood, the blood, and Steve’s going to grab his wrist at any moment now, he knows, he will look at Tony and touch him for once before his soul fades right before Tony’s eyes, and Tony can hear it, _you could have saved us_ and Steve’s eyes closing and _the blood-_

That’s how it goes.

* * *

 

Steve spends five days unconscious.

Considering Steve heals ten times faster than a regular human being, he might as well be dead, Tony thinks, sitting on a bench outside of his room. His left arm is on a casket, and his other arm rests in his lap, hand clutching the flip phone so hard it hurts.

Tony doesn’t know why he’s here. He never comes inside. There’s no need. It’s not like Steve lacks company – Sam, Natasha and Barnes seemingly take turns at watching him, though Tony suspects it’s less of an organized system and more each one of them forcing the other to get away and rest a little from time to time. He doesn’t offer to help, because it’s still awkward between them, he tells himself - but Tony is a genius, can’t help but be one even when it’s not convenient to do so, and he knows very well the actual reason is because he doesn’t think he can handle the sight of Steve in a hospital bed, oscillating between life and death. He was barely able to handle the wound; clutching Steve’s shoulders so hard with the gauntlets he was probably doing more harm than good, breaking through a window to reach the palace, shaking and saying a bunch of completely unintelligible things as Bruce and a sixteen-year-old girl tried to calm him down. It took _Thor_ to get him to let go of Steve and let the doctors do their jobs, and thank God it had been him, really, because not many people would have handled a punch from the armor with such sportsmanship. Certainly no one else would have hugged Tony afterward, mumbling things Tony imagined were supposed to be reassurances as Tony just kept babbling nonsensically about blood and space and _I saw it, I saw it, I knew it was going to happen._

Tony likes to think he’s handling it a bit better now that Steve is actually breathing and, according to the doctors, has a 50% chance of recovery. Except Tony is a genius, and he knows very well 50% is just the percentage you throw at people when you have no actual idea what might happen.

So Tony, handling it better, offers every single technological advancement he can think of to help the treatment, but, obviously, even his best is just barely useful compared to Wakandan tech. He reluctantly shows up to his own doctor appointments, eats something when Rhodey pretty much forces him to, and can’t let go of the phone for one second. He and Barnes have an unspoken mutual agreement of not acknowledging each other’s existence, something he’s grateful for; but every time Sam or Natasha leave the room he can’t help but raise his head and stare at them expectantly, as if they’re going to say Steve just confided in them that he’s just sleeping or something. It’s pathetic, he knows, but he doesn’t even care – it’s all he has now, sitting in front of that hospital door, unable to do anything but wait. His chest feels so tight sometimes it feels hard to breathe. His mind keeps going through his mental Steve file – his sad smile, brave gaze, occasionally flushed cheeks; his terrible handwriting, stiff posture, distant hands. His sadness, his stubbornness, his shield hammered on the armor and breaking Tony’s heart. He goes through it all, all those tiny, precious pieces of Steve, haunted by the thought this might be it, a failed experiment with no conclusion, useless like a spare engine he had tinkered with to the limit, until he eventually had to just give up and accept it couldn’t give him anything else anymore.

And sometimes he wants to barge into the bedroom, wants to grab Steve’s shoulders and shake him until he wakes up. He wants to punch Steve’s wound, watch as his blood covers his hands - wants to drown himself in it, to lay his head on the hole on Steve’s chest and mumble _see, that’s how it feels_. He wants to yell, to throw his phone against a wall, to force Steve to open his eyes, to curse him, to beg, _don’t die when I was almost managing to hate you again._

And other times the anger falters, and there’s a wave of despair in his chest, and he can’t open the door because he can’t bear to face Steve, can’t bear to passively watch him fade before his eyes. He wants to curl up on the floor, to scream, to throw his new reactor off his chest and break it too, because it’d hurt less. He wants to drag himself to Steve’s bedside and lay his head on his shoulder and apologize for failing, for not listening, for being useless, for not building the fucking time machine. He wants to say he can’t do it, can’t walk away, can’t throw the engine out – he wants to say _I kept any scraps I could get from you close to my chest as if they mattered_. He wants to say he was so hurt in those two years and even then he couldn’t stop, he kept the phone, reread the letter, looked through ancient notes. He wants to say he spent years clinging to those little pieces of Steve and it wasn’t _enough_ , not yet, _please, please, don’t leave me again._ He wants to say _I wanted you to touch me so bad it fucking hurt, I craved your happiness as if it were my own._ He wants to hold Steve’s hand and see his face and say so many things, everything - but he can’t, can’t get inside the room, can’t fix anything, and there’s palladium and shrapnel in his heart and _I’m so bad at this, Steve, I’m so sorry, I wished I could be better._

In those times, Tony buries his face in his hand, taking sharp breaths to compose himself, ignoring the way Sam comes closer to him and lays a careful hand in his shoulder. He shakes, pathetic, too busy with his own self-pity to even manage to stare at the men he loves dying on the next room.

Then it hits him, like lightning: The text. The text, Tony thinks, maniacally, and it’s as if the phone burns with it in his fingers, that one trace of Steve he managed to hold back on taking.

Tony opens the phone and looks at the closed envelope icon that he wasted so much time staring at before, and clicks so fast, his hands shaking so much he almost drops the damn thing. He feels his eyes burning, his breath sharpening, his lungs tightening, and he looks and reads it so fast he doesn’t even has the time to wonder what it says.

It’s a number.

Tony feels as if the world stops spinning for one moment, and there’s nothing but white noise in his ears as he stares at that one message spelling out _085_ and nothing else.

He barely feels Sam’s arm hugging him by the shoulders, and he wonders if he was already shaking this hard before or not.

“It’s a code," Sam says, voice unbearably gentle.

Tony manages to raise his head to look at him, and his expression is compassionate and sad at the same time.

“What the fuck,” Tony breathes out, a part of him wanting to break into hysterical laughter and the other wanting to cry like a child.

“It’s from Wakanda,” Sam continues. “When we were traveling around, the number, I mean, it couldn’t always get service, so T’Challa gave it to us. It unlocks some kind of unlimited signal, so, you know, if you needed to call, you could always reach us. Him.”

Tony thinks his chin is shaking, and he tries to breathe, but there’s no air left in his chest. “What the _fuck,_ ” he says again, staring at- at three numbers, fucking three numbers spelled out in his phone, the only  piece of Steve Rogers he had willingly given him.

“Took months to convince him to send it to you.” Sam looks at Tony almost apologetically. “Kept saying bad signal would never stop you, that you had probably upgraded the phone already or something.”

“He… He didn’t talk to me at the palace. That’s- that’s the only thing he said to me,” Tony says, because it finally dawns on him, and it’s as if a weight falls over his shoulders. “In two years.”

Sam’s arm tightens around him.

“He’s not gonna go down like that. He’ll wake up. He will, Tony,” he says, and Tony clings to the confidence in his voice, wanting to steal some of it for himself. “And… And when he does, I hope you two can talk.” A pause. “Because you need to.”

Tony lets out a choked laugh, burying his face in his hand again.

* * *

 

When he wakes up, Tony is sleeping.

He knows because Rhodey tells him, in the morning, and a part of Tony wants to shake him for not having called him immediately – as if he hadn’t gone 72 hours without sleep for a fuckton of reasons that don’t have even an inch of the importance of this before. Tony goes to the medic area of the palace almost running, his heart beating on his chest like a hammer.

He stops at the door and takes a deep breath and – opens it.

Steve is pale, is the first thing he notices. He has a huge wound on his chest, a blazing reminder of the fact that if Proxima had aimed the slightest bit to the left, not even Eskrine’s serum would have stood a chance. His eyes widen when they find Tony’s, and Tony allows himself to see the way his beard seems prickly and rough to touch; the dark circles under his eyes; the longer hair messed up, falling slightly on his face. He looks nothing like the Steve Rogers Tony has always known – the hospital bed makes him look smaller, frailer, more like the scrawny kid in Brooklyn who wanted to do the right thing and fight bullies. His eyes stare at Tony with something that sends a shiver down his spine, strange and nervous and terrifying at the same time. He’s tired, pale and weak.

He’s perfect.

“I’m going to go check on Wanda," Natasha says, and Tony jumps a little, because he hadn’t even noticed she was there. Steve doesn’t react, still staring at him, and Tony thinks he may not even have listened.

As she leaves, Tony just stands there for a moment.

“Hey,” he hears himself saying, and Steve seems startled. He blinks a few times, his eyes big and tense, his posture stiffening so much Tony is pretty sure it must sting, because of the wound.

“Tony,” Steve says. It’s been two years since Tony’s heard his name in his voice, and it hits him like a bullet, the sound crawling inside his chest, carving a tunnel where the palladium and the shrapnel meet each other.

It’s too much, Tony thinks. People aren’t supposed to feel this way. They _can’t_ be.

He moves without realizing it. Steve watches him, alert, as he approaches the bed, taking the chair Natasha was previously sitting on. It’s so close his knees touch the mattress, and it’s as if Steve feels it, somehow, because he shakes a little, looking away.

Steve doesn’t touch people, Tony thinks, and the thought is so achingly familiar he feels a knot in his throat. He’s stuck watching Steve in front of him, closer than he has been in years.

Under his gaze, Steve shifts uncomfortably. Tough luck, Tony thinks, because he couldn’t look away if Thanos himself busted through the door.

There’s a long silence, and Tony watches Steve’s hands clutch the blanket in his lap. When Natasha was there, his arms were laid on his sides, hands relaxed on the bed. Now that Tony’s knees touch the mattress, Steve’s hands stay firmly closer to him, his posture as stiff as a hospital pillow can possibly allow to, shoulders hunching as if he’s trying to curl up inside himself, to make himself smaller.

“Does it hurt?” Tony asks. He’s not staring at the wound.

Steve, obviously, shrugs. “Not much.” He says, and Tony wonders how hellish the pain might be, to get him to actually answer the question. “Doctors did a great job. The serum should take care of it from now on.”

Tony wants to laugh.

He wants to say: _Half an inch to the left and you’d have been instantly dead. Serum wouldn’t take care of that._

He wants to say: _How do you live like this?_

He wants to say: _I have the phone in my pocket right now, it’s been there for the past two years._

He wants to say: _If people are supposed to feel this way, I don’t know how humanity made it this far._

He wants to say: _Please stop keeping your hands out of my reach._

Instead, he says: “I opened your message. While you were… Sleeping.”

Steve’s eyes glance at him for a second before looking away again. He swallows. “Oh. It’s a-“

“I know what it is.”

Tony doesn’t mean to sound cutting, but that’s how it comes off, like a sharp knife cutting through the tension around them.

“I- I thought you had ignored it.”

“I wanted to.”

Steve’s face twists, as if Tony just stabbed him.

For a moment, they don't say anything. Steve shifts his shoulders, tense, hunching forward even further.

“Tony,” He mumbles, and Tony’s heart takes an immediate leap, like a dog answering to a command. “Tony, I…”

“You didn’t look back. I screamed at you, and you just dropped the shield.” Tony hears himself saying. There’s a strange heat in his head, like a buzz on his ears. “You didn’t talk to me at the palace. You… You got hit, and, and I just, I thought, I should open the fucking message, and…” Tony swallows. “That was the only thing you said to me in two years.”

_You were going to die, and the last thing you would have said to me was a code of three numbers._

It’s not fair, Tony knows. He has his own share of things to own up to. But he also knows this isn’t about Siberia – not entirely, at least. This is about Steve Rogers, and Tony needs to know, needs to ask, needs to find an answer for whatever question has been tormenting him all this time.

Steve keeps his eyes staring straight, not glancing at Tony, but there’s – there’s a weird reflex in them, Tony notices.

“I’m sorry," he says, blinking quickly, lips pressing together, fingers still clutching the blanket.

Something strange wakes inside Tony’s chest, though he doesn’t know what. 

“I’m so sorry, Tony,” Steve continues, his voice weak and soft and – and – choked up.

Tony feels like he can’t breathe, suddenly, watching the way Steve’s eyes sparkle, how his fingers rip through the blanket, holding it too hard.

(It’s not the words, he knows. The words were in the letter, Tony read them, knows them by heart. It’s his eyes, blinking so fast and insistently, stubbornly, fighting back the way his body wants to crumble, to fall apart. It’s like watching someone drowning – someone knocking at a glass barrier desperately, frantically, unable to break through it.)

“I’m so sorry for what I did to you,” Steve says, and his eyes glance at Tony for a moment, blue and red in a way Tony has never seen them before.

He moves, and _that_ must touch the wound, because Steve winces a little, his eyes closing forcefully for a moment.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks, standing up. Steve takes several sharp breaths, and Tony notices his hands shaking. “I should get-“

“No," Steve grunts, face still clinched with pain, breathing deeply. “I- It’s fine. You don’t need to-“

“Stop that, of course you need-“

“No, Tony, I- Listen to me,” Steve says. His voice is weak but tense, and he turns his head towards Tony as he’s opening his mouth to answer, turning towards the door, and then he reaches forward and-

* * *

 

Here’s how it goes, touching Steve Rogers:

Steve’s hand is rough against his skin. He grips Tony’s wrist _tightly,_ fingertips pressing at his veins, and it’s as if there’s an actual electric charge between them. Tony’s whole body wakes up, his heart beating so fast in his chest that he almost thinks it must not have been working before, it must have never worked to its full capacity until this moment. Tony’s standing up, but he feels he could fall to his knees right now, just at the feeling.

There’s a sound at the contact, a tiny, weak gasp, and it takes Tony a moment to realize it didn’t come from him.

Steve’s eyes are wide as he looks at their hands, and Tony feels – Tony _sees_ the way his whole body shutters, the sharp breath his lips take, the nervous flush in his cheeks. He can see the way Steve’s lower lip trembles for a moment, and Tony watches how his muscles clench with tension, how a glimpse of something pained shadows his eyes.

It’s nothing like the vision. It’s – it’s intense and strong and _eager_ , desperate, burning incredibly alive against Tony’s skin.

Steve lets go after one second, and Tony’s hand reacts on its own, turning to grip the side of Steve’s palm with his fingers, and – and – and there’s that full body shudder again, and this time Steve’s hand actually shakes against his, and Tony finds his eyes and – and for a moment the world shifts, beneath his feet, because Steve’s face is open and nervous and fragile, and Tony lets his thumb stroke his knuckles and he gasps again, face flushed and beautiful and so, _so_ scared and Tony-

Tony gets it.

* * *

 

The thing about loving people is that Tony is not the only one who’s bad at it.

It’s like ice. It spreads around, creating a block, a thick layer of nothing but cold, with something on the middle that, by all accounts, shouldn't be alive, but is.

* * *

 

They don’t spend much time there. Steve’s hand is shaking desperately against his own, and there’s a part of Tony that doesn’t want to let go. There’s something bursting inside of him like a chariot, his heart pounding against his lungs, because suddenly it _makes sense_ , everything, and it’s the most terrifying and amazing feeling Tony’s ever felt, and he’s torn between dropping Steve’s hand and running out of the room at full speed and jumping at Steve in the bed.

Instead, he takes a deep breath, pulls Steve’s hand to the mattress, and lets his fingers caress his skin one last time before letting go. Steve’s eyes follow his every move, and Tony knows he needs to look away if he doesn’t want to go back and follow his other impulse.

“Get some rest, Cap," he says, and it sounds more confident than he feels – he’s shaking, he’s _terrified_ , and Steve’s eyes haven’t looked away from him _once_. “I’ll tell Sam he can come in.”

Steve closes his eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply. “Ok.”

Tony turns his back to him – he can still feel his hand warm, his fingertips mourning the loss of contact with Steve’s skin – and he’s halfway through the door when he hears Steve again.

“Tony,” he calls, and Tony’s body turns towards him without him meaning to, caught in the orbit of Steve’s voice. “I mean it. I… I’m not good at… This.” He makes an aimless gesture indicating the two of them, eyes darting to the blanket yet again, and something inside Tony _swells_ , pushing his lungs, making it hard to breathe. “And you don’t have to forgive me. You don’t have to say anything. But I need you to know I mean it.” His eyes find Tony’s again, and he sounds more like the Steve Rogers Tony knows, now – voice steadier and stoic and completely certain of everything that leaves his lips.

Tony smiles. “I know,” he says, voice softer than he means to, but he can’t help it. “I know you do.”

* * *

 

The thing about a conclusion, Tony knows, is that once you find that one insight that you were looking for, everything else falls into place, and you can’t help but look back with that new perspective, which, in a way, changes every piece of data you’ve accumulated over the years.

So as the months go by, Tony looks back.

Steve is stubborn. He politely refuses every single time Natasha or Sam tell him to go back to the compound, choosing to spend his time on the terrible apartment T’Challa managed to get him, a shithole Tony hates with a passion the second he puts his eyes on it.

“So, Sam said you were expecting an official invite.”

Steve crosses his arms, staring at him.

“Sam doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” He uncrosses his arms and then crosses again, shifting slightly. “You don’t have to do this, Tony.”

“And yet, here I am.”

“I’m serious. I… I don’t want to impose myself on you.” His blue eyes seem heavy as he looks at Tony. “The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable.”

“Well, you should have thought that before letting me in. I am uncomfortable. Actually, I think I might be getting claustrophobic. Or maybe it’s just the smell of the mold that’s suffocating me.” Tony waves his hands around, indicating the minuscule living room around them.

Steve ducks his head, a tiny, almost insignificant twist on the corners of his lips. “The compound is your home, Tony.”

“It’s 100 acres, Cap. It’s got more than enough room for both of us, and you can easily ignore me if you want.”

“I don’t _want_ to ignore you,” Steve says, the palest hint of that despair of the hospital room creeping into his voice, as if he doesn’t know how to say it.

“Then don’t,” Tony replies, softly, chest warm and full of fear. Steve just stares at him, and it takes all of Tony’s bravery to not look away.

The next week, when Steve brings his baggage, Tony types the code to his room and remembers: Steve is organized. Everything in his old room is exactly the way he left it, which is to say, immaculate. Steve lets his eyes wander and blinks a few times, looking almost dazed as Tony explain some details about new security upgrades.

“Do you have T’Challa’s shield? I couldn’t say it before on the risk of Okoye ripping my head off, but I’d like to take a closer look.”

“Oh, yeah, here,” Steve says, opening the backpack to reveal a neat pile with one or two clothes and a flip phone, right on the top, firmly strapped to Steve’s belt. Tony’s heart does a backflip as Steve empties the backpack on his bed. “Uh. It was supposed to be here. Must’ve gotten mixed with Sam’s stuff when we left for the quinjet. Forgot my notebook, too.”

“Right.” Tony nods, pressing his lips together to keep himself from smiling. “You only had time to pack the essentials.”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Steve says, his eyes meeting Tony’s for a moment and darting around immediately afterward, and Tony doesn’t look away for a second.

Steve is smart. He has a practical and blunt type of intelligence, and he knows a thing or two on how to deal with the public, so to their first press conference as a reintegrated team, he gets a haircut and shaves his beard. He doesn’t ask Tony for the shield, but Tony gives it to him anyway, a couple months after he comes back, without saying a word (because Tony is still bad at this, even if he’s trying very hard not to be). Then, to lighten the air, Tony comments they should redesign his suit as well, if he wants to.

“Keeping any upgrades Shuri came up with, of course. I bet her modifications saved your ass more than once.”

Steve stares very firmly at the ground. “Hm, actually, there… There aren’t any.” With the new haircut, Tony can see his ears better, how the tips flush slightly at every word. “It's just, uh. She offered, but….” He shrugs.

Tony blinks.

“So, wait. It’s - It’s the same suit? It’s the same suit.” Tony looks at him incredulously. “You’ve been using the same suit since 2016.”

“You made it,” Steve says, as if that explains everything. “I couldn’t just throw it away.”

“You went to war against Thanos with three-years-old gear.”

Steve shrugs. He’s still staring at the floor, but there’s a small smile in his lips, as if he can’t help it. “I guess.”

Tony grins, that overwhelming rush in his chest. “Let’s go make you something new, Cap,” he says, reaching forward and bumping his shoulders against Steve's, hands in his pocket to keep himself from doing anything else.

Steve doesn’t touch people. So when Tony starts doing this, finding those little excuses to touch him, he’s deeply terrified that it will mess everything up, ruin this fragile balance they’re managing to build. But Tony is a scientist, and science is all about risk, so he does it anyway.

It’s never anything clearly intentional, like a hug. Instead, Tony uses his genius mind to find small, accidental ways to touch Steve – to bump their shoulders together when they’re walking, to sit next to his chair in the living room and let their legs touch for a second, to brush his fingers against his hand when they reach for the same thing at the kitchen table.

Tony always watches for Steve’s reaction. It’s always fast, always nervous, always enough to make Tony’s heart feel suffocated in his chest. He snaps back immediately, as if he’s been burned, and then he gives Tony nervous glances, with a thoughtful and pained expression, as if he wants to say something, but doesn’t know how.

Steve is not good at this, Tony reminds himself, when his own fear and nervousness threaten to ruin everything by making him run away and drown his urges in alcohol. Steve is brave and funny and smart, and he’s stubborn and quiet and sad, and he broke Tony’s heart once, smashing it in a million pieces and destroying his own in the process, too. Steve doesn’t touch people, and he wore a dirty, battered uniform for two years because Tony made it, carrying a flip phone all over the world and failing to send him anything other than a poorly-written letter and a message of three numbers. Tony _aches_ for him, every cell of his body waking up at the slightest step of this experiment, because he finally did it, found the conclusion he was looking for.

Steve never asks for anything, and Tony wants to ask everything from him – wants to drown in those blue eyes, to taste that sad grin, to hold those hands in his tightly. He wants to hear Steve’s low chuckle against his ear in the morning; wants to cuddle up with him in the couch while watching _The Hobbit;_ wants to watch Steve draw and paint and rolls his eyes at how much Tony doesn’t get art. Time passes, and Tony wants and wants and wants, and Steve flushes at his grins, laughs at his jokes, and looks at him when he thinks Tony can’t notice. Steve never asks for anything, and Tony wants to give him everything anyway - and, this time, he actually can.

* * *

 

Here’s how it goes, kissing Steve Rogers:

Tony does not think about it. He doesn’t plan it, doesn’t tell himself to do it, doesn’t use any of the pickup lines he has been practicing for weeks. He doesn’t follow any of the fantasies or dreams he has been having for the past seven years. He just… Leans forward, when Steve is right next to him in the couch, because this time he sat there on his own, tense posture as if he was doing something incredibly daring, and Tony felt something inside him melt. Tony’s hand comes up to touch his face, almost unconsciously, and Steve’s skin is warm and soft under his fingers. Steve shivers, his eyes widen, his cheeks flush, and Tony knows that there’s no backing off now.

So he takes a sharp breath, hands cupping Steve’s face carefully, loosely, and presses his lips against Steve’s. His mouth is soft and warm and delicious. Steve shudders.

“Tony,” he mutters, and Tony thinks it’s a beautiful name, this one he has, soft and strong in Steve’s low, rushed voice. He moves closer, his thumb touching Steve’s lips, and he can feel the warmth of his cheeks under his palm.

“ _Tony,_ ” Steve repeats, voice strangled and nervous, and Tony wants to close his eyes to hear it, has never heard his name sound better. He kisses the corner of Steve’s mouth, his cheeks, his jaw. He presses soft, chaste kisses all over Steve’s face, heart pounding in his chest at the small sounds Steve makes, weak, beautiful noises Tony wants to keep hearing. Steve doesn’t move, just shivers at every touch, eyes wide and scared never leaving Tony’s face. Steve is brave, is the bravest person Tony has ever known, and his fear tugs Tony’s heartstrings, makes his body move closer, hands lowering from his face to his shoulders, still kissing every inch of skin he can touch. It’s magical, in a way, almost religious, Tony thinks, the way Steve squirms and trembles, how his body leans forward almost as a reflex, as if he wants to break an invisible barrier between him and Tony’s lips.

But there’s no need, Tony wants to say, kissing Steve’s forehead, his eyelids, his nose. There is no barrier, and they can touch like this now, can do it forever if they want to ( _I want to,_ Tony thinks, mouth back at Steve’s, kissing the corner of his bottom lip). Tony caresses Steve’s neck, feeling the way Steve shivers and he lets out a small, helpless whimper that goes through Tony’s whole body. He goes over every inch of Steve’s mouth, dragging his lips over his, smiling against Steve’s face. Tony rests their foreheads together, opening his eyes for a moment to take in Steve’s flushed, stunning face, and he is one second away from swallowing every sad smile Steve ever gave him. Steve’s eyes blink at him slowly, dazed, lips so close to Tony’s face he can feel the warmth around them, and Tony wants to tell him he’s got it all backwards. _You were never meant to be alone._

But they have time, now – Tony wants and wants and wants, but the time matters, and he raises a hand to touch Steve’s hair, ruffling it affectionately. “Everything ok?” He asks, trying to keep his voice soft and gentle, to let the words kiss Steve’s skin too.

“Yeah,” Steve answers immediately, the corners of his mouth twisting upwards slightly, in what Tony imagines would be the beginning of a beautiful, lazy grin. But then he lets his eyes dart around, looking away, even if his body doesn’t move an inch. He takes a deep breath and looks straight into Tony’s soul, blue gaze so nervous and insecure Tony has to hold himself back to not just dive into his mouth at once. “I’m just… I’m not. Uh. I'm not good at this.”

The words echo between them, apologetic and sad. It sounds like he’s saying a lot of other things, too, and Tony can hear them almost as easily as he hears the actual sentence. So he lowers his hand, caressing from Steve’s hair to the back of his neck, and kisses him again. This time, he lets his tongue touch Steve’s lips, and that’s when Tony feels his posture melt, his arms moving to hug Tony’s waist, pulling him closer. Steve’s mouth opens and Tony feels his tongue against his, wet and strong and so, _so_ warm, and Tony kind of ruins everything by grinning into the kiss, but when he pulls back he can see that lazy, blissful smile Steve was trying to contain before, gorgeous and perfect, all over Steve’s lips.

“Me neither,” Tony says, and he feels Steve’s arms tighten his grip around him and he clutches Steve’s shirt, leaning forward to press that big grin against his own.

* * *

 

Tony’s data turns into kind of a mess, afterwards. Old details mix with new ones, all encompassed by this newfound understanding that makes every time he looks at Steve easier, simpler, and more fascinating all the same.

Steve is shy, and Tony knows that. He knows that from the way his eyes meet Tony’s in the kitchen next morning, and he smiles sheepishly, as if he can’t help it, blushing as he pretends not to be staring. Then Tony moves closer, raises a hand to cup those flushed cheeks, pressing a chaste peck on Steve’s lips, and Steve melts into the small contact, body leaning forward as he’s scared any sudden movement is going to push Tony away.

Steve is warm – so, _so_ warm. At night, his skin boils against Tony’s fingertips, his body shuddering under his. He’s so nervous, so _sensitive,_ covering his own mouth to attempt to contain his moans and whimpers – and Tony grabs his hand and pushes it away, kissing his fingers, treasuring every sound he manages to make Steve let out. He’s awkward and inexperienced and he melts against Tony’s lips easily, beautifully. Tony buries his nails onto his back, leaves marks all over his neck and shoulders, devours Steve’s mouth and sucks every inch of his lips. Steve comes apart under him and Tony wants to tell him he’s wrong, he’s _so_ good at this, so good at being touched and tasted and felt.

Steve breaks a lot of things. He tears sheets, rips off a cupboard, literally shreds parts of Tony’s mattress between his fingers. He leaves a trail of destruction behind being touched, traces of his lost control all over Tony’s bedroom, the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen. Sometimes it’s not even sex – Tony cuddles with him during movie night once and the inside arm of the couch cracks when he plays with Steve's nape hair a little. Steve flushes, apologizes, but honestly, Tony has never had a better reason to buy new furniture.

Steve is quiet. He enjoys a comfortable silence, and yet he comes over to Tony’s workshop even when he’s blasting music at full volume. He sits nearby, draws in his notebook, bounces ideas off Tony to make improvements to the team. He orders five pizzas that he could perfectly eat by himself, but he still insists Tony has some. It’s like before, in a way, except completely different, because now Tony is happy to lean forward and wipe out the occasional smudge of sauce on Steve’s cheek, and Steve grins softly when he does it, before insisting Tony needs to take another piece.

Steve is impatient. So when he meets Tony in the living room in the middle of a phone call with Rhodey, he waits for him to finish, hands clasped at his back, shifting in the same place. By the time Tony hangs up, he practically jumps, and Tony is one second away from thinking this is about some team problem when Steve smiles and asks if he wants to go out for dinner.

“I mean, we don’t have to, if you’d rather stay in," he says, voice contained as always, but there’s a glimpse of an excited, giddy spark in his eyes, and Tony wants to see that all the time, forever. “But I thought we could take the chance, now that everything is calm, to… You know. Have a proper date.”

“Midnight pizza not doing it for you anymore, Cap?”

Steve shrugs.  “We can still get pizza.” He crosses his arms, a dorky, brattish smile on his face. “But only if you let me pay.”

Steve is sweet, and Tony really wants to say that doesn’t throw him off anymore, but it really does. He opens doors and pulls Tony’s chair for him like the pizza place they choose is some five-star restaurant or something, and, yeah, Tony gets a bit flustered. He fights back, though, by casually reaching for Steve’s hand in the middle of the conversation, intertwining their fingers over the table. Except this time Steve doesn’t flinch, doesn’t stiffen, just beams at him and squeezes Tony’s hand tightly, as if he never wants to let go.

Steve is sad. That’s never going to change, Tony realizes - not completely, at least. Sometimes Steve looks at him and Tony knows, can see the pain all over his face, the regret, the urge to run away, to not let himself have what had been his all along. Tony knows the feeling, because it hits him too, sometimes. Instead of running away, though, Tony curls up next to him – holds his hand, strokes his hair. Steve’s breath sharpens, and he opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, but Tony just keeps holding him. He thinks about Ultron’s eyes, Charles Spencer’s blood on his hands, and when he intertwines his fingers with Steve’s, he can there’s spills of blood on his hands, too, that have never faded. They can’t clean them off, so they just touch.

Sometimes Steve wakes up in the middle of the night, when Tony’s still doing some work on his Starkpad, and for a moment his eyes dart around the room like he can’t remember where he is. Tony heart aches, and he moves closer, hands gently rubbing Steve’s shoulders. Steve holds him, taking several sharp breaths, and Tony thinks: _If I had a time machine, I’d let you use it. I’d send you back to a place you know, a place you feel you belong in. I’d send you to where you wouldn’t be alone, because you were never meant to be alone. You’re so warm – no part of you was ever meant to be frozen._

Then Steve’s breath calms down, his hands hug Tony’s waist, and Tony knows he’d never accept the offer, even if he asked. He smiles a little, as they both drift off to sleep.

* * *

One day, Steve’s arms are stroking Tony’s back, delicate as if he’s touching something incredibly precious, and he tilts his head towards him.

“Tony,” he says, his eyes vulnerable and open and hopeful, not looking away for a second. “Are you happy?”

Tony beams against his skin, lifting his head to kiss him once, twice, three times, all over his face, rubbing his stub against his cheek until he makes him giggle. “Take a wild guess, Cap.”

(They’re still bad at this, but Tony thinks they're learning.)

* * *

 

The thing about loving people is that no one’s exactly good at it. And Tony loves too much and too loudly, and Steve loves too much and too quietly, and they learn to find each other in the middle, to create their own frequency. It’s like palladium and shrapnel, and ice, and Steve’s touch in Tony’s hair in the morning, Steve’s voice at his ear at night, Steve’s hand carefully and slowly reaching for his during a team dinner. It’s like Steve’s mouth smiling dazedly against his when Tony wants and wants and _takes,_ clutching Steve’s shirt in his fingers, pushing their chests together until they can feel the mended pieces of each other’s hearts, beating under their skins like they, too, want to touch.

(To Tony, it’s almost funny, to think he once tried to convince himself he could be contented with pieces and crumbles of Steve Rogers, because now even devouring Steve whole doesn’t feel enough, sometimes, and Tony wishes he could crawl inside his skin, merge with him, have him in a way the universe hasn’t managed to create yet. It’s scary, it freaks him out a bit, but there’s no going back now, Tony guesses, not now that he can kiss Steve’s smiles and can’t fathom a time where he was able to hold back that urge. It’s big and heavy, but Tony finds that it’s easier to stand, now that he knows Steve can also feel the weight.)

* * *

 

It’s been almost a full year since the first time Tony saw Steve truly terrified for the first time, in a hospital bed in Wakanda, when he comes near him in the workshop and passes him the flip phone. Tony opens it and goes straight to the messages, to find the dozens of drafts he knows will be there waiting for him. There’s everything there, from a simple _“Hey”_ to “ _I miss you_ ”. There’s “ _I wish you’d call_ ”, “ _How are you?_ ” and “ _Thanks for letting us escape_ ”. There’s “ _Happy birthday_ ”, “ _I’m sorry about Pepper_ ”, _“I wish you were here”_ and “ _Hi, I’m just sending this to make sure you got the package_ ”. Some are just his name, “ _Tony_ ”, scattered around, beginnings of things Steve couldn’t even write down properly, let alone send to him. Tony goes through months and months of drafts, and it’s as if he can feel it, the guilt and pain jumping from every pixel straight to his chest. And there, right on top, is the text with the three numbers, lonely and longing, a tiny piece of something so much bigger than either of them could ever understand.

Steve says: “Probably should have listened to Sam sooner. I guess I thought… I thought you didn’t want to hear anything from me. I thought you hated me.”

Tony wants to laugh, to cry, to go back to bed and love Steve Rogers with all he’s got, for the rest of their days. Instead, he leans closer, head on Steve’s shoulder, sighing into the curve of his neck. “I did.”

**Author's Note:**

> 'Steve wearing the same old suit for two years because he's pining for Tony' is not my idea - I saw it in a tumblr post that I can't find now, but if anyone knows it, hmu so I can credit it properly. 
> 
> Anyway. This took me so long to finish that it feels surreal to think it's finally done. Wow. I started it before Infinity War, and it was originally supposed to be a gen character study on Steve, because I was so sure he was going to die, but as I wrote it was impossible to keep Stony out of the way so I just embraced it.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading it! As always, I'd love to hear you thoughts about it, and if you want to talk or cry over Steve and Tony, you can find me at my tumblr: [x](http://elcorhamletlive.tumblr.com/)


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